When Kolarov was still a student, NATO was bombing Yugoslavia. Unable to go to school, he started playing football at home with his brother. The two brothers used the door frame as a goal and competed to see who could kick the ball more accurately. As a result, the brothers always made a loud bang when kicking the door frame, and the neighbors mistook it for a missile attack.

Kolarov is a star who grew up in a war environment.

In 2009, he helped Inter Milan win the Serie A championship and the Italian Cup. In 2010, Kolarov was moved by Manchester City's sincerity and transferred to Manchester City, becoming Manchester City's chief left-back.

He possesses the unique ruggedness of Slavic football, has good physical fitness and strong stamina. Although his technique is not delicate, it is very practical. He runs actively without the ball and has a good long shot.

Manchester City's starting right back is player No. 2, 22-year-old young player, Micah Richards.

Micah Richards was the best newcomer in the 2007 Premier League. In 2000, Richards first trained at the Oldham Youth Camp, and in 2001 he was spotted by Manchester City scouts.

Richards' explosive power and speed were definitely the ace among aces among the young generation at that time, even better than the wind-chasing boys.

Most of the players in the current Manchester City team were recruited from other teams by Middle Eastern tycoons at huge expense. Richards is the only one who was able to stay in the first team as a starter as a youth player.

At the beginning, Richards was trained as a striker, but Richards was not good at crossing, passing, dribbling, stopping the ball, shooting, long shots, and scoring in front of the goal - he was so damn fast that the ball couldn't catch up with him when he ran.

So Richards switched to playing as a defender.

This change made Richards feel like a fish in water.

Richards is like a fish in water on the defensive line. He is not only capable of playing as a right back, but also as a defensive midfielder and defender.

He doesn't need any defensive skills, he just turns quickly, starts quickly, bursts into action quickly, and has super strong stamina. He is completely invincible. He just runs close to the opponent's forward, and the opponent's forward just can't outrun him.

Therefore, the 22-year-old Richards's skills are very rough. His crossing, passing and stopping skills are very poor, not even up to the level of English League One. However, he can rely on his super fast speed, endurance and close confrontation to gain a foothold in a top Premier League team like Manchester City.

Moreover, Richards is getting better and better at playing, and is one of the few positive and inspirational black players on the Premier League field.

The two central defenders starting for Manchester City today were No. 19 Jolyon Lescott and No. 4 Vincent Kompany.

Lescott is 28 years old, 188cm tall and weighs 88kg. He can play as a left back or a center back.

Lescott is strong and fierce in defense. He started at Wolves and became famous at Everton. He is the first person in Manchester City's 100 million defense plan.

After a wealthy man from the Middle East took over Manchester City in 2009, the team was almost rebuilt from the ground up. There was an opportunity to build the best defense in the Premier League for 100 million pounds, and the first person Manchester City saw was Lescott.

This is not to say that Lescott is already a world-class defender, but because a world-class defender like Ferdinand cannot be bought with money.

Lescott was initially reluctant to move to Manchester City. After all, Manchester City played terribly before 2009 and were far inferior to Everton.

But in the end, Lescott was moved by Manchester City's transfer fee of 24 million pounds. This transfer also made Lescott the most expensive player in the defense line besides Manchester United's Rio Ferdinand.

In addition to his height and physique, fierce defense, good positioning, certain speed and aerial advantage, Lescott's biggest characteristic is that he is ugly.

If we were to choose the most handsome man in English football, there would be a lot of controversy, such as Beckham, Santa Cruz, and Gu Ran. Every star has his own loyal female fans.

However, if we were to choose the ugliest man in English football, there would be almost no dispute that Lescott would be the winner.

There was once a joke that when England's golden boy Owen was at the peak of his career, he was playing football with Everton. He made a beautiful move, dribbled past the opponent and went straight into Everton's penalty area. When he was about to shoot, Lexett stood in front of Owen with a frown. Owen was so scared that his legs went weak, and the ball that he could have easily shot was intercepted by Lescott.

Lescott is also known as the number one defender with his face.

Although Lescott has lowered Manchester City's average appearance, fortunately Manchester City still has the handsome Roque Santa Cruz who was bought from Blackburn for 17.5 million pounds.

Santa Cruz is 189cm tall. Among the South American players who are generally short in stature and have poor average looks, Santa Cruz and Kaka are both outliers.

Santa Cruz is hailed as the Paraguayan Batistuta by the Paraguayan people and the Beckham by the Bayern fans where he once played.

Like Kaka, Santa Cruz has also suffered serious injuries and minor injuries frequently.

Many people thought that Santa Cruz would retire early, just like many people thought that the rich second-generation Buffon would retire early, but the result was that Santa Cruz grew from a glass man to an evergreen in football, and later he did not retire until 2023 when he was 42 years old.

It's a pity that Mancini does not recognize the current ability of Santa Cruz. In other words, Santa Cruz is not a big enough star and his ability is indeed not world-class. Therefore, although he bought Santa Cruz, Mancini leased the Paraguayan striker worth 17.5 million pounds back to Blackburn as soon as he changed hands.

Therefore, Santa Cruz was not present in this game, otherwise he could have competed with Gu Ran in terms of appearance.

Another central defender of Manchester City is Vincent Kompany, also known as "Big Head" and "Captain Kong".

Belgian international Kompany is only 24 years old. Unlike other super-luxury teammates who were bought at high prices, Kompany transferred from Hamburg to Manchester City at a lower transfer price a few days before the Middle Eastern tycoons moved in.

After Kompany came to Manchester City, Manchester City immediately announced that it had been acquired by a Middle Eastern tycoon and launched a 100 million pound defense plan that shocked the English football world.

In other words, the 100 million pounds from the Middle Eastern tycoon did not spend on Kompany.

Seeing that a super ugly guy like Lescott has a transfer value of 24 million pounds and a super high weekly salary, any other player would have lost his balance long ago, but Kompany didn't care at all. He just played football seriously and grew step by step from an unnoticed transfer player to a true core leader of the defense.

As a defender, Kompany can definitely be called world-class.

Kompany is 190cm tall and weighs 91kg, but he has a slender figure and does not show any excess fat.

This has a lot to do with the fact that he works hard to build muscles in the gym every day. His body fat ratio is very low, and his body is full of muscles like steel.

Such strong physical condition also makes him very powerful when facing the opposing forwards.

His tackling ability, heading ability, and defensive positioning are all first-class, and more importantly, Kompany has very good on-the-spot defensive command ability. He knows exactly where he should stand and where his teammates next to him should stand.

He is a strong player with a high basketball IQ.

This also laid the foundation for him to become a coach in the future.

In short, Kompany's seasons at Manchester City were the seasons when Manchester City truly rose, and Kompany's contribution in defense was indispensable.

And there is also a top central defender who is sitting on the bench and talking and laughing. He is the former Arsenal vice-captain, Kolo Toure, Yaya Toure's older brother.

Kolo Toure is an absolute grassroots player. Before becoming a professional player, he had never participated in a youth training camp, nor received any formal professional training. He didn't even put on sneakers to play football for the first time until he was 17 years old. Before that, he played football on the wild fields in the slums of Côte d'Ivoire, following the path of the football king Maradona.

It was not until four years later in 2001 that Kolo Toure entered the Ivory Coast's professional club Abidjan Mimosa to play football. At the age of 21, he officially became a professional player. Then in 2002, he was spotted by Wenger and signed to Arsenal at a very low price. He stayed there for 8 years until Manchester City launched a 100 million defense plan.

Manchester City's starting goalkeeper is player No. 21, the world-famous background goalkeeper, Joe Hart.

Joe Hart is 23 years old, 191cm tall and weighs 80kg. He is currently England's top goalkeeper.

As a goalkeeper, Joe Hart is a little thin, but this also makes him very flexible, his muscles react very quickly, and he can save fatal goals continuously.

Although Joe Hart is often ridiculed as a goal-scoring background, and there is even a saying that "If the sky has feelings, it will also grow old, and it will miss a kick when it sees Hart", in fact, Joe Hart is still very strong as he can become England's first goalkeeper at such a young age.

Joe Hart maintained a record of 18 consecutive clean sheets in the Premier League and won the Premier League Golden Glove Award for two consecutive years.

Joe Hart looks funny, but he is actually very stable. The reason why people have the impression that "If God has feelings, it will also grow old, and you will miss a kick when you see Hart" is because the shooters Hart faces are all world-class. If there is a slight problem with his positioning, the world-class striker on the opposite side with an extremely keen sense of smell will seize the opportunity.

In short, except for Kompany, Joe Hart and Micah Richards, the other main players of Manchester City were basically introduced by Middle Eastern tycoons at huge cost in 2010.

Tevez's worth alone is already equal to that of the entire Southampton team.

So, in the eyes of most people, this is a game without suspense.

Even Southampton's own fans felt that if they only lost by two goals, they would be considered a winner.

...(End of this chapter)